Gay-Friendly Blu-rays (1 Viewer)

[MatthewA]

Can we PLEASE stop this absurd back and forth? We know where we all stand. There is a world of other movies to talk about, but this got old three weeks ago.

Well, I'm ready when everyone else is. Love, Simon is coming out soon. So far, I haven't seen anything I find objectionable about it. I'm sure I'll enjoy that. But since I am no longer what advertisers consider "young," I missed the age to get the maximum impact out of it. How will younger gays respond to older shows where the text is heterosexual but the subtext is homosexual, especially when that was out of necessity? This isn't a movie that could have been made in 1985.

 

[cinemiracle]

Already seen Priscilla, which I thought was good in parts but had kind of troubling implications,* so thanks for the other recommendations.



You're right. It is ridiculous. It's too low. It America, which got gay marriage first, it should have been NC-17 since it's about sex between adults and minors. And as for anyone comparing the infinitely superior GOC, where Johnny and Gheorge were adults by any legal standard in any nation on Earth, to that vastly inferior and embarrassingly self-loathing Jake & Heath Tire Iron Melodrama**, that peach scene reminded me of a similar scene in another movie when I was almost that age. Oh yeah, it was called American Pie.

*I'm bothered by the idea that a man should have to copy women to get a man. There's something about that that strikes me as being extremely homophobic. We should be able to win men on our own strengths as men.
**I wish Hollywood knew how to quit making excuses for their shortcomings regarding gay films, shortcomings other countries' gay films don't seem to have as much.

And what about that famous sock scene in PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT?

 

[Matt Hough]

Well, I'm ready when everyone else is. Love, Simon is coming out soon. So far, I haven't seen anything I find objectionable about it.

Well, the actor who plays Simon identifies as straight in real life. Don't you object to that? Wasn't that one of your criticisms of Call Me by Your Name?

I'm not trying to be arbitrary or cause anger but just trying to understand your positions on these issues.

 

[MatthewA]

Well, the actor who plays Simon identifies as straight in real life. Don't you object to that? Wasn't that one of your criticisms of …

I'm not trying to be arbitrary or cause anger but just trying to understand your positions on these issues.

So did David Tomlinson. Tell that to Pauline Kael, who called him a "sexless pixie" when reviewing that movie on my avatar. In 1971, a heterosexual actor playing a heterosexual role in a film where they're still playing musical chairs with Roddy McDowall's* character could still get gay-shamed.

In addition, seeing as how the film is about college sports and the Duke Family who are responsible for why a small North Carolina school called Trinity College is now called Duke University, Happiest Millionaire fans might be interested in an ESPN documentary called I Hate Christian Laettner, about the former Duke basketball player. Despite now having a wife and kids, he was called a derogatory term for gay people, one that figures prominently in God's Own Country, by crowds at the Duke-LSU game in 1991 when Shaquille O'Neal was playing for the latter. And this was in Louisiana, not in Durham. I know because my father took my sisters and I to Cameron Stadium regularly and we never once heard that word. This is how deep homophobia used to run in our country, but even then there were exceptions to the rule.

As for the lead in Love, Simon, he's obviously not the only gay character in the film. What about the actor playing his boyfriend?

Even so, the question of whether or not they are any good as actors still applies. Joel Grey is gay and Jewish and won an Oscar for playing a Nazi-sympathetic German MC. They also cast a Cockney as an Irishman. That's how Hollywood works. Being gay alone is not enough to win my approval. You still have to be able to act. Even gay directors seem to be open to mixing-and-matching with the sexual orientations of their characters and actors. John Waters**, of all people, admitted to it in one of his books.

Independently of that, seeing things I detest being put on a pedestal makes me feel angry. I also feel like men are shamed unfairly for expressing negative emotions such as sadness or anger.

*There's a scene in That Darn Cat where Dorothy Provine ends up trapped in the closet.
**Ernie in Female Trouble was the only character in the film with malice towards none. Between Davenport, Delta, the Teenage Runaway, and Tony Orlando's backing singers, the 1970s basically belonged to women named Dawn.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Matthew A:

This is the third time (in recent memory) the moderating staff is needing to tell you that you CANNOT quote other members and change the content of (or delete) sections of their remarks before responding.

It is not fair to the poster who originally makes those remarks to have them altered yet still connected with their UserID.

The next time we see it happen, there will be a loss of privileges.

 

[Will Krupp]

Wasn't that one of your criticisms of Call Me by Your Name?

That was one of the arbitrary "everything but the kitchen sink" criticisms when the initial one didn't work.

 

[Jason_V]

As I mentioned up thread, I am very excited for Love, Simon. We originally were going to do a big group movie, but those plans changed. My best friend and his husband are going opening night; it is likely our family will do a family movie day/night after opening. Andrey and I are excited for the movie and we're taking his 17-year-old sister. We think this will be a good experience for her as a family unit and I can't imagine there's anything in the movie she hasn't already been exposed to, considering what I know she watches on Netflix.

 

[Will Krupp]

As I mentioned up thread, I am very excited for Love, Simon. We originally were going to do a big group movie, but those plans changed. My best friend and his husband are going opening night; it is likely our family will do a family movie day/night after opening. Andrey and I are excited for the movie and we're taking his 17-year-old sister. We think this will be a good experience for her as a family unit and I can't imagine there's anything in the movie she hasn't already been exposed to, considering what I know she watches on Netflix.

That sounds like SO much fun!!

 

[Jason_V]

^ Somehow, my life went from Eastsiders to Full House in less than 24 hours. We should install a camera to record it all...

 

[MatthewA]

I wish you'd chosen a different analogy, but you reminded me what's so exciting about Love, Simon: it looks like an oasis in a pop culture desert.

 

[Jason_V]

I wish you'd chosen a different analogy, but you reminded me what's so exciting about Love, Simon: it looks like an oasis in a pop culture desert.

I assume you're talking to me. So why? What analogy would you have liked me to use to describe my life?

 

[Mark-W]

I must agree even though I feel somewhat a traitor to "the cause," but I lived through the height of the AIDS crisis both in movies (Longtime Companion being far and away the best) and in real life volunteering for an AIDS hotline for years and my partner and I being buddies to a wonderful man who inevitably perished from AIDS-related causes.

Like Will, I long for more positive stories and, for me personally, I'd prefer said stories about thirty-year olds and up.

Thanks for sharing your story, Matt. I appreciate reading it and feeling a kinship with you.

I ordered BPM because I want to support it. I hope to watch it at some point when the mood hits me.

I think many of us that are forty plus have AIDS survivor-ship stories. It has been a war. We are battle worn and scarred at this point. We've lost lovers, friends, and mentors, too many to mention, to a degree most people don't experience until they are in their elder years.

And then there was our own survival and fear around dating and falling in love during the early days when we were still not sure what being "safe" meant, which was further complicated and compromised by logic and reason's failure in the heat of passion, particularly when one is standing in front of the hunkiest, fittest man I've ever met. He's sitting on the edge of my bed, removing his clothes, giving me come-hither looks, and he wants to not use a condom...He looks super healthy with that amazing body, right? He couldn't possibly want to put me at risk, no one would do that, right?
...
The very first man I ever truly fell in love with, still the sexiest man I have ever met, fell in love with me, too. He was also thirteen years older than me. I was upset when many months into our relationship, I discovered that he was HIV-positive. This also coincided with the period of time I went to urgent care and was told by the doctor that I had AIDS because I had a temperature, swollen lymph nodes and, "Well, you're gay, right?" (It turned out to be strep throat, but for a week, I thought I had AIDS.)

I'll have to watch BPM one day or afternoon when I am feeling like my heart is coated in Teflon.

 

[MatthewA]

I assume you're talking to me. So why? What analogy would you have liked me to use to describe my life?

An actually well-written, relevant, and non-annoying TV sitcom about men raising children. One without that Bure woman in it.

 

[Jason_V]

An actually well-written, relevant, and non-annoying TV sitcom about men raising children.

Whatever. And with that, I'm done with you.

 

[MatthewA]

Kirk Cameron is a bad person and so is his sister. Don't make this about me. They use their fame to marginalize people like me and all of us here and everywhere. I can't accept that. I can't support people who openly defame gays. Even when I was a kid, I didn't like their shows because I just plain didn't think they were funny. And in the interest of fairness, I never liked the show that came on before Kirk's show either for the same reasons.

I try not to bring up things I don't like, but it's hard to do when other people do. How do you deal with it? I tried ignoring it but it just doesn't go away. It isn't that simple. It's not enough to just say that I dislike something without giving a reason. Yes, I would rather be championing obscure and unfairly maligned works, and championing gay artists who earned it. Sometimes, limited or compromised availability makes it difficult. If I need to vent my frustrations when stuff I like gets overshadowed by stuff I hate, please do not take it personally. To paraphrase a quote from this very thread, there are no condoms for the brain.

And it's always fun to point out accidentally gay moments in film and TV history. A lot of those are born out of naïveté rather than out-and-out prejudice, in the strictest sense of the word.

 

[SteveJKo]

...The very first man I ever truly fell in love with...............swollen lymph nodes and, "Well, you're gay, right?" (It turned out to be strep throat, but for a week, I thought I had AIDS.)

I'll have to watch BPM one day or afternoon when I am feeling like my heart is coated in Teflon.

Mark, I am just so sorry you had to go through that. There simply are no words. I think that, like you, I'm going to watch BPM eventually, but it's going to have to be at the right time. I'm still reeling from The Normal Heart (and that's almost four years ago)!

 

[Will Krupp]

I think many of us that are forty plus have AIDS survivor-ship stories. It has been a war. We are battle worn and scared at this point.

I didn't quote your whole post, Mark (and welcome back, by the way, you've been missed. Where the hell have you been??) but you put it so beautifully and accurately. I could NOT have summed up my own feelings any better. Thanks.

 

[MatthewA]

I'll have to watch BPM one day or afternoon when I am feeling like my heart is coated in Teflon.

Don't wait. I was on the fence about going all the way to San Fran to see it, but I did, and as much as I cried over it, I didn't regret it. I needed the catharsis. I needed to mourn the dead to figure out what I could do to save the living. I will always wonder about the gay culture that could have been if AIDS had never happened. Sometimes feeling sad is justified. And as a movie, it's just so well-made. It couldn't have knocked me out emotionally as much as it did if it wasn't. And one of my favorite scenes

Spoiler: PLOT TWIST

involved someone storming out of a meeting because he felt the activist groups only cared about their own well-being more than the actual cause they are supposed to be fighting for. I myself have felt the same way some times about some (nominally, if that) gay organizations that aren't HIV/AIDS-specific.

Perhaps they can use this to solve the water crisis here in California.

 

[Joel Arndt]

Mark, I am just so sorry you had to go through that. There simply are no words. I think that, like you, I'm going to watch BPM eventually, but it's going to have to be at the right time. I'm still reeling from The Normal Heart (and that's almost four years ago)!

Same here Mark. How awful! And this was out of the mouth of a medical "professional"? And I put the word professional in quotes because that is certainly questionable.

Steve, I feel the same way about The Normal Heart. Extremely well done, but difficult watching for those of us of a certain age. I couldn't finish it actually. It had been a gift from one of our neighbors that we invited to our annual neighborhood progressive holiday party, The Heights Holiday Homo House Hop or 5H event.

 

[SteveJKo]

...but difficult watching for those of us of a certain age...

Joel, less than 10 years ago I suddenly received a call from a good friend asking me to take him to the ER. The tone in his voice, well you can imagine. I'm extremely happy to say he's doing really well now. But I think of that night......... . In any case, yeah, The Normal Heart is excellent but not the easiest thing to sit through.